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2008, Living Mandala
creative services by: 360 Degrees
In Association With
Dancing Freedom
The Universe
Facilitators
Samantha Sweetwater
Jay Ma
Don Tipping
& Additional Support Staff
What will you do to live?
Seriously…
How may workshops have you done?
How many paths have you walked?
How many promises have you broken?
How many drugs have you tried?
How much more life do you really want?
If you are like me, you’ve been on the path for a long time. You’ve done your work. You f*cked up. You’ve done more work. You’ve played hard. You’ve fallen down. And, you’re pretty good at getting up.
You’ve felt betrayed by the promises of teachers and coaches, by the culture of success, even by your own higher self. You yearn to stabilize yourself in a state of grace, yet you are human, changeable, fallible… real. You are continuously drawn by the flame of evolution.
Fundamentally, you love life. And, you are coming to live within the realization that there is no destination, only the walk.
WHAT NEXT?
Welcome to INITIATION ~
Live Your Life as Your Prayer
The Invitation
This is an invitation for you to step into a fully initiated life – a Medicine life – one where you get to create your amazing story while surrendering fully to your Creator.
One where you have the tools to live in alignment with your soul.
It’s the way I do it. It works. Not in a linear, safe way. But, in the way you were designed to live – in integrity with the deepest intelligence of your organism and essence. In a way where you get the most juice out of your challenges and your blessings, you get to be all that you can be, and you get to love as big as you really want to love.
And, I’ll tell you a secret.
This is the only path to true happiness, meaning or success.
We want you to have this.
We want to rock this life with you!
What is Initiation?
Initiation is a Vision Quest for people of all ages.
For untold millennium, people from earth based cultures around the globe have made rights of passage ceremonies for youth passing from adolescence to adulthood. In general, these ceremonies involve leaving the comforts of home, the ease of family and tribe, to enter into deep contemplation, naked solitude with the wild and amplified states of consciousness to cry for a true vision – a personal vision for your life and for the unique gifts only you can give back to the tribe.
Today, we desperately need initiated leaders. We need people who are embodied in the vision and image at the center of their souls. Yet, we were not initiated as adolescents. So, we come to this ceremony where ever and when ever we are in our lives to mark a clear passage – a passage into a deeper co-creation with life, a surrender of adolescent patterns, a dropping of addictions, fear and entitlement, an ownership of the gifts and responsibilities we are here to carry as we co-create the world we want to live in and share with future generations.
This is why we create Initiation. This is out invitation to you.
Are you ready and willing to live an initiated life? Uncover. Recover. Remember.
What is VISION?
VISION is ceremony: a non-ordinary space of revelation, inspiration and fortification, a space where everything supports you to have an authentic dialogue with Self, Nature & Spirit to empower Soul-level transformation for your life.
It's a BIG PRAYER to manifest what you most want for yourself and All of Your Relations. It's a BIG PRAYER to listen to what the world is calling forth from you so that you can truly contribute your greatest service, vision and purpose to the tribe.
The expression of your soul is the primary prayer you came here in this life to pray – the perfect purpose embedded within you as a unique expression of god's intelligence.
Spirit - formless - flows through everything, weaving our oneness, our unity, our sameness and non-separation. Soul is the aspect of spirit that makes each of us unique, individual, able to have and to create beauty, experience and expression. Because the universe is an animate intelligence, a dance of soul and spirit, every aspect of Nature is soul, has soul, is an expression and a reflection of soul.
When you pray in this way, you make yourself naked to the wilderness - both within and without. You open to genuine communion with ALL THAT IS. You open to the total interconnectivity and intersubjectivity of the universe. Inevitably, your "stuff" is revealed to be healed, and you receive true reflections of your most essential gifts and passions. In receiving such Vision, you are empowered to BE FREE, and to return to the world to give the one gift only YOU can give – the unique expression of our soul’s purpose.
This is an open doorway.
A true opportunity.
A ceremony of soul-return.
This is the invitation we offer you.
Awaken Your Body. Open your Heart. Love your shadow. Expand your light. Heal. Grow. Connect... Glow.
Contact
Samantha Sweetwater: email: Trainings@dancingfreedom.com
Living Mandala: education@livingmandala.com
phone: (530) 918-8675
Initiation / Soul Quest
An Ancient/Contemporary Rites of Passage
Sept 22 - 27, 2015
Southern Oregon
* CHOOSE YOUR LIFE
* MAKE YOUR PRAYER
* LIVE YOUR YES
Initiation - What to Expect
This Summer join Samantha Sweetwater and an amazing support team for this a six day journey integrating dance, yoga, community mirroring, permaculture immersion, sweat lodge, a vision hike and overnight solo sit on the top of Grey Back Mountain and other ceremonial allies to uncover, recover and remember who you are.
Get the support you need to carry your soul truth and vision back in meaningful and potent ways into your life. Anchor practices, prayer and subtle shifts in perspective that will help you to stay on the good road – no matter where your life takes you.
This journey does not promise any destination. It promises to support you to live more gracefully and in true to who you really are. Expect and be prepared to have a profound experience that will forever remain with you and support you living your prayers for the rest of your life.
Who is This For?
Initiation is for people of all ages who are committed to continuously coming more alive, who don’t want to live by prescriptions but by deep inner knowing and the intelligence of love. It’s for people who know that their deepest potential lies in living in alignment with love and spirit. It’s for people who choose big, beautiful lives.
The Details
We begin at 1pm on Sept 22nd. We will complete by 4pm on Sept 27th.
Registration includes all guidance, food, camping, and ceremonial allies. This is a camping retreat. Base camp will be at Seven Seeds Farm. Bring your own tent and bedding. There is no need to bring cooking gear, as we’ll be sharing meals in the Seven Seeds kitchen. You will need a light pack and at least a one gallon water bottle for our overnight hike to the top of Grey Back. It’s a moderately strenuous 6+ hour hike at 5,000 feet of elevation, so please be prepared.
Please email Samantha directly if you would like further details on the schedule and ceremony at :samantha(at)dancingfreedom.com.
There will be a group preparatory call in early July, details TBA. You may also want to book a private session with Samantha to more deeply clarify your intention and the deeper patterns you’ll be working with during your ceremony.
Capacity
Space is limited to up to 18 people. We expect to fill to capacity, so please be sure to put your deposit down to reserve your spot. If you do not get in, let us know if you would like to be listed for our next VISION retreat.
Investment in Self
Space is very limited. A deposit is required to guarantee your spot:
* Investment in self (cost): $995.
* A $250 non-refundable deposit reserves your space.
Registration includes camping, all ceremony support, and wonderful, healthy, locally grown meals. It does not include transportation to or from the ceremony.
Suggested Reading
Soul Craft or Nature and the Human Soul, both by Bill Plotkin; and/or Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss to prepare yourself for our work together.
About Dancing Freedom
Dancing Freedom is an invitation to be more fully alive. It is a free-form ecstatic, somatic & shamanic movement prayer ~ a community oriented method of dance therapy, a sacred practice & a soul return ~ friendly for all ages, abilities and bodies.
INSPIRATION
LIBERATION
PARTICIPATION
Join us. Ignite Your Soul!
* We are truly honored and humbled to be offering this Ceremony to you.
The world benefits as we love ourselves, listen to God, and grow together.
Facilitators
Samantha Sweetwater
Samantha invokes the integral wisdom of body, mind, heart and spirit. She ignites the passion of the soul’s true purpose, and reflects the Beauty Way of Evolutionary Enlightenment - the marriage of Source connection with grounded actions, whole relationships and living communities. In her travels, she has inspired thousands to embrace living tools for radiant health, authentic expression, joyous wholeness, planetary regenesis and awakened heart. Through the Dancing Freedom Embodied Mystery School, Samantha is training a community of facilitators to spread Peace-embodied around the world. She is constantly exploring angles through which the soul level epiphanies of the dancing experience can galvanize the WE in sustaining communities, relationships and actions. She is currently part of the organizing team for State of the World Forum and the Global Transitions Initiative.
Lead Facilitator
Jay Markert (“Jay Ma”)
Jay Ma is a holistic educator, regenerative design consultant, permaculture teacher, and social entrepreneur committed to creating ecological and cultural resiliency through living systems design principles. As the founder and director of programs at Living Mandala, Jay works with holistic educators, businesses, communities and institutions designing, organizing, and promoting educational trainings, events, and initiatives for personal, ecological and social transformation in the pacific northwest, nationally, and internationally. Jay is a community organizer and seasoned event producer who has produced educational programs, retreats, workshops, conferences and community development projects for 12 years now with organizations including the Regenerative Design Institute, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Gaia University, Omega Institute, Harmony Festival, and many others.
Jay received his first Permaculture Design Certificate in 2001, started his degree program in performing Arts Production Management at Naropa University, received a B.S. through New College of California in Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community with a concentration in Eco-Dwelling & Natural Building in 2005, and is currently a Master's Candidate at Gaia University in Integrative Ecosocial Design. He is a two-time graduate of the pioneering two-year training intensive in Regenerative Design & Nature Awareness through the Regenerative Design Institute. Jay is permaculture design course instructor, a nature connection educator, a community facilitator, and a fire walk instructor through Sundoor International.
Jay is skilled community organizer as well as an engaging educator passionate about sustainability, nature connection, social entrepreneurship, team building, and creating a culture of human beings living harmoniously with each other and our environment. More information on Jay Ma can be found on his Linkedin Profile.
Support Facilitator
Don Tipping
Don Tipping and his family have stewarded Seven Seeds Farm & Siskiyou Seeds since 1997 on the north slope of Grayback Mountain in Williams, Oregon. Don has been offering hands-on, practical workshops from his many years of hard-earned experience on seed saving, permaculture, eco-forestry, and a variety of sustainable agriculture and homesteading techniques for 15 plus years.
Seven Seeds Farm has been designed to function as a self-contained, life regenerating organism with waste products being recycled and feeding other elements of the system. Lauded as one of the best examples of a small productive Biodynamic and Permaculture farms in the northwest, Seven Seeds helps to mentor new farmers through internships and workshops. Here they produce fruits, vegetables, seeds, wool, eggs, lamb, and much more. They have produced certified organic vegetable, flower and herb seeds for over a dozen national scale seed companies. Seven Seeds Farm has also been active in USDA Western SARE, Organic Seed Alliance and other seed initiatives to advance the development of open pollinated organic seeds. In 2009, Don started Siskiyou Seeds - a bioregional organic seed company operated from the home farm.
Don helped to found the Siskiyou Sustainable Cooperative which manages a 150 share CSA, commercial seed growing, an equipment co-op and internship curriculum among 12 cooperating farms. Don is currently serving as the president of the Family Farmers Seed Cooperative. He also co-founded the Family Farmers Seed Cooperative, a seed grower, marketing and distribution cooperative comprised of 10 western organic farms.
Don helps people focus upon building their skill sets in sustainable life skills such as permaculture, biodynamics, organic gardening, eco-forestry, seed saving and other traditional arts that help to build regenerative culture.
Plus Additional Support Staff